Taiwan-based Unity Opto Technology announced plans to invest $1.9 billion NT (around $64 million USD) to setup six new production lines for mini-LEDs and micro-LEDs.
Unity Opto Technology, established in 1993, develops and markets a wide variety of LED products, including LED packages, LED back lighting for displays and automotive LED products.
China-based display producer China Star Optoelectronics Technology (CSOT, owned by TCL) announced a joint-venture with Xiamen Sanan Integrated Circuit (Sanan-IC, owned by San'an Optoelectronics) to develop micro LED materials and production processes and equipment.
The two companies will invest a total of 300 million Yuan (around $43 million USD) in the new venture, with CSoT holding 55%.
Earlier in January, Belgium-based MICLEDI announced that it raised 4.5 million Euro to develop next-generation MicroLED microdisplays for AR applications.
We had a short talk with MICLEDI's CEO, Sean Lord, who helped us understand a bit more about the company's technology and goals. MICLEDI is indeed focused entirely on the AR market, and so aims to provide display engines that will be extremely bright (over 10 million nits), efficient, and with a very small footprint. In addition costs are also important for the future consumer AR market.
Researchers from the University of Sheffield a new fabrication process for green InGaN microLEDs that achieves high brightness compact microLED arrays.
Today most green InGaN microLEDs are produced by combining a standard photolithography technique with subsequent dry-etching processes on a standard III-nitride LED wafer. The researchers found a way to avoid the dry-etching processes which damage the surface the resulting LEDs. In the new process, the InGaN stack is direectly grown within pre-patterned micro-hole arrays through a thin (500nm) SiO2 layer serving as a GaN template over the epitaxial wafer.
Taiwan-based LED producer Epistar is in talks with China-based LED display maker Leyard Opto-Electronic to setup a Mini-LED and Micro-LED production site in Wuxi, China. The two companies (actually Leyard and Epistar's subsidiary Yenrich Technology) will setup a joint-venture with a budget of $142 million.
Leyard says that the plan is to form the joint venture six months after getting the final approval for the plan. This will enable the production to begin in the new fab in 2023. It is still not clear whether the new fab will produce mini and micro LED chips - or actual displays.
In January 2019 Aixtron and PlayNitride signed a joint-collaboration agreement to accelerate Micro-LED development and PlayNitride ordered an AIX G5+ C MOCVD system. Aixtron announced that the AIX G5+ C system is now fully qualified for production - and Playnitride placed a follow-up order for a second such system.
Aixtron says that the G5+ C is an advanced advanced production tool that offers market leading wavelength uniformity to meet the tightened Micro LED market specifications in a batch reactor high-throughput environment. The system allows for the lowest defect and particle level in the industry due to an effective in-situ cleaning technology and the cassette-to-cassette handler which is essential for high yields. The G5+ C MOCVD was also recently ordered by Plessey for its own GaN-on-Silicon Micro-LED development and production.
UK-based GaN-On-Si MicroLED microdisplay developer Plessey Semiconductor announced that it has successfully developed the world’s first GaN on Silicon-based Red LED.
Red LEDs are typically based on AlInGaP materia, or are color-converted from blue LEDs. These red LEDs limit the efficiency and the ability to create ultra-fine pitch sub pixels. Plessey says that InGaN red LEDs will also offer lower manufacturing costs, scalability to larger 200 mm or 300 mm wafers and better hot/cold factor over incumbent AlInGaP-based Red.
According to a new report, China's LED producer Sanan Optoelectronics developed 10x20 micron LED devices (micro-LEDs) and is offering sample chips and testing data for microLED display makers. San'an aims to start producing these micro-LED chips on 6" wafers in Q4 2019.
Most microLED displays use chips produced on 4" wafers, and the move to 6" will enable lower production costs.
UK-based GaN-On-Si MicroLED microdisplay developer Plessey Semiconductor announced that it managed to deposit native blue and green microLEDs on the same wafer. Plesseyâs new patented process forms microLEDs that exhibit high current density operation and long operational lifetime.
Plessey said that to achieve this important milestone they had to overcome several challenges - including a magnesium memory effect, diffusion from the p-type cladding of the lower junction into the upper junction and the requirement for the precise tuning of the thermal budget during the growth of the second junction to prevent indium phase separation in the blue active region.
US-based Lumiode has been developing MicroLED Microdisplays for many years, but the company has been very quiet and did not disclose much about its technology. We have recently met with Vikas Dhurka (VP Marketing) and Eddy Hsu (director of Display Systems) who explained and demonstrated the company's technology.
Lumiode has developed a unique technology for the fabrication of TFT backplanes directly on top of Micro-LED arrays. This enables an entirely monolithic process (with no wafer bonding) to create highly bright and efficient microdisplays.
